Meet the Ex-UBS Executive Convicted in an Insider-Trading Trial

(Bloomberg) -- The Financial Conduct Authority’s insider-trading trial of former UBS Group AG compliance officer Fabiana Abdel-Malek and her friend Walid Choucair ended with them each getting three-year sentences after a London jury found them guilty of five counts. The FCA alleged that Abdel-Malek gave Choucair tips about major corporate deals that UBS was advising on, helping make a profit of 1.4 million pounds ($1.8 million). The first trial last year ended with a hung jury.

This is what you need to know about the key players in the two trials:

Fabiana Abdel-Malek
Defendant
Age: 36

Abdel-Malek came from a middle-class home in west London and went to an independent girls’ school around the corner from the stylish Sloane Square with a motto of: That our daughters may be as the polished corners of the Temple. The archbishop of her Coptic Orthodox Church told the jury that she helped children and the homeless. After training as a lawyer, Abdel-Malek became a graduate trainee in UBS Group’s compliance department in London and rose steadily through the ranks.

When she befriended day trader Choucair, she was still living with her parents and two younger sisters. He took her and her friends out to his exclusive private members club in Mayfair. When he asked her to only contact him on a burner phone, she used the SIM card in a handset identical to her work phone. And when she was woken up and arrested in September 2015, she lied to the police about using pay-as-you-go handsets. Across four days of testimony, Abdel-Malek kept her cool.

Abdel-Malek’s father came to court with her every day, his face wrought with the stress of watching his daughter sitting in the dock. When she testified during the first trial, he clutched a palm-size wooden cross and a photo of Abdel-Malek, and nodded along to some parts.

Walid Choucair
Defendant
Age: 40

Born in London and sent to a nearby boarding school, Walid Choucair was 18 when he lost his father to cancer. After years in what he describes a drunken haze, Choucair started putting his inheritance to work when he met some sophisticated traders in 2005. He took on their practice of only using burner phones to exchange stock tips and changing them every three months. When not trading, he dedicated himself to his real passion of collecting guitars and going to Tramp, the Mayfair nightclub his parents introduced him to.

For much of the two trials, Choucair wore a hoodie and sat in the dock at the back, looking glum. When things weren’t going his way, he left the court room in the breaks,  took drags on an e-cig and let his frustration out to his defense team. When it was finally his turn to testify, he showed up with an ironed shirt, a suit and his charm. During the first trial, he won smiles from some jurors for his self-deprecating humor and his occasionally florid use of language. During the most recent case, he struggled to muster the same elan during constant battles with prosecutors.

Prosecutors

When John McGuinness opened the first case at Southwark Crown Court in late October, a judge in a different part of the building was reading out the jail sentences for two former oil bosses McGuinness had prosecuted for fraud in the same building. His biggest challenge in this trial was trying to ensure the jury didn’t buy into the defense case that Choucair could have received his tips from other traders rather than from Abdel-Malek. After an unsuccessful first trial, the prosecution switched to insider-trading specialist Sarah Clarke for Choucair's cross-examination, and the defendant was left visibly worn out.

While McGuinness lost some of his spark in the second trial, he lit the first one up with moments of levity, particularly in quick and often witty exchanges with Choucair. He drew the biggest laugh when Abdel-Malek told him she’d seen celebrity Nicole Scherzinger at Tramp one night. "I think about her every evening," McGuinness quipped.

The Defense Attorney

Choucair’s lawyer Richard Wormald fought the judge and prosecution at every turn, but managed to maintain an endearingly cheeky demeanor throughout. In a country where many lawyers drone on monotonously, he showed himself to be a compelling speaker, with a vocal range and poise of an actor.

During his first closing, he asked the jurors to write down questions the prosecution hadn’t been able to answer. The 12 men and women duly did so and retired to deliberate on their verdict with the list in hand. He also pointed out that the prosecution hadn’t presented evidence of any payments to her. “Money talks,” he thundered, “But she didn’t.”

The Judge

Judge Joanna Korner seemed to take the U.K.’s first insider-trading trial in more than two years in stride. Perhaps that’s because of her four decades of legal experience, including eight years prosecuting leaders in former Yugoslavia for war crimes. She sat overlooking the room, sometimes drumming her fingers, swiveling in her chair or scribbling away with her fluorescent yellow pen.

Korner kept the two trials on track, rejecting requests by the defense to require investigators to produce more evidence or to open a new avenue of questions. When McGuinness’s cross-examination of Choucair descended into something of a debate during the first trial, Korner castigated the defendant: "Just answer the question."

After one break Korner strode in, pulled off the white wig criminal judges and lawyers are required to wear in court, and called: "Wigs off." Within an instant all seven lawyers had whipped their own headpieces off. When the jury came in, Korner explained: "We’ve all taken off our 18th century wigs and we all look slightly more normal."

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chris Elser at celser@bloomberg.net

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